Only 2 books this month. 2019 has been busy, what can I say?
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – E.L. Konigsburg
I’ve been trying to read a book a month that’s from my childhood this year. So far, so good. This was one I didn’t think I’d read. Everyone and their dog puts it on the “Top X Books from your childhood we all read” but I couldn’t remember it. Turns out I do remember it, now that I’m done with it.
12 year old Claudia Kincaid decides to run away from home because she’s a middle child, and not appreciated. She brings along her younger brother Jamie, because he keeps money and she likes to spend it. They end up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, where Claudia becomes obsessed with an angel statue that might have been carved by Michelangelo.
Until I read it, and remembered the bits about the train ticket, the sarcophagus, and them bathing in the fountain, I was convinced I had just missed this book. Nope, I read it, filed it away, and it just didn’t stick in my brain, like Secrets of the Shopping Mall did. Shame, as this is a much better book.
So, this is a cute book, even if it is told by Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler. The idea of the story being told by her,. As she was told it by Claudia and Jamie, is a cute one. The way they avoided the adults and roamed the museum was neat, and could only happen somewhere that didn’t charge admission. Like a lot of books of that era, there are illustrations periodically, and I enjoyed those too. A Fun walk down memory lane.
This one was recommended to me by my boss at work. Oddly enough, I’d picked up on a BookBub deal a few months ago, because it looked interesting. It took me a while to get into, but once I was in, I devoured it.
Darrow is the 16 year old Helldiver of his clan, where he and his clansmen mine the minerals that will terraform Mars and make it habitable one day for the weaker castes of colours: pinks, greens, etc. As a Red, he and his people live in mines, and eke out a meager existance, but not a terrible one.
Until things go south. Darrow’s wife is executed, and Darrow himself is put to death, but survives. From there, he’s recruited into the underground, the Sons of Ares, where he’ll infiltrate the highest caste of humanity: The Golds. Only by becoming one of them, and one of the elite, a Peerless Scarred, will he be able to bring them down.
I thought the series was a trilogy, so I knew that Darrow wasn’t going to bring down the Golds in the first book. Good thing, or I’d have been disappointed. He does end up in a position of potential by the end of the first book, so you can see where it’s going. I guess it’s a series now, and up to 6 books or something like that.
The book is interesting, as it’s a combination of tech, and of old world ideas. Darrow and his classmates are set up in a chunk of Mars to fight until only one house is leading them all. It’s a combination of simple things, like baking bread and killing and gutting animals, and high tech weapons and armor,like anti-grav boots. In the end you can guess who’s triumphant, although the journey to that point is more interesting than the win itself.